Chapter Text
THE wind screamed, and Dorothy Gale screamed with it.
She'd barely made it inside before the whole world tilted sideways. Her little cairn terrier, Toto, was crushed against her chest, both of them shaking so violently she couldn't tell where her tremors ended, and his began. The front door slammed shut behind her, or maybe she'd slammed it. She couldn't remember. Everything was too fast, too loud, too wrong.
"Aunt Em!" she cried. "Uncle Henry!"
But the wind swallowed her voice like it was nothing. The house gave a long, low groan, a terrible sound, like some great animal in pain. The floor pitched beneath her. Dorothy stumbled, hit the wall, then dropped to her knees and crawled toward her bed. It was the only solid thing left in a world that had gone completely mad.
The roar was everywhere. Inside her head, inside her bones. She couldn't think. She couldn't breathe. Then, the house lurched.
Dorothy's stomach dropped clear through to her toes. She knew she was going to die. Fourteen years old, and this was the end of everything. She was going to die in a cyclone right here in Kansas, and all those dreams would die with her. She'd never get to New York City, never stand under those bright theater lights she'd read about in the magazines at the general store. Never sing for a real audience, not just the chickens and their farmhands and Toto. All those wishes she'd made to the stars on those sticky summer nights, when the sky stretched on forever, and the farm felt like it was closing in around her, they'd just blow away with the wind.
Through the storm's howl, a different voice seemed to surface, kind and distant, like the voice was coming from another world. The man by the campfire who'd smiled at her like she mattered. The man who hadn't minded when Toto gobbled down one of his hot dogs like it was the best thing he'd ever tasted.
Professor Marvel.
They don't understand you at home, Professor Marvel had said, his eyes shining above the crystal ball. They don't appreciate you. You want to see other lands, big cities, big mountains, big oceans.
At the time, it had felt like magic when she'd stumbled across the old man and his caravan after running away from home, like someone had finally seen her. But then he'd looked into that crystal ball and told her Aunt Em was sick, crying and clutching her heart and dropping down onto her bed, and Dorothy had run. Run all the way back home through the gathering storm, desperate to tell Aunt Em she was sorry, that she didn't mean it, that she loved her.
And now those words twisted in her chest.
"I didn't mean it," she whispered, gripping Toto tighter. "I didn't mean to go away. I just wanted to see her again. I just wanted to go home."
The window exploded. Dorothy screamed again as glass flew like sharp little stars through the room. She buried her face in the mattress, arms over her head, while Toto barked and barked right next to her, like her brave little dog could scare the cyclone away.
The wind came howling through the window, cold and mean, pulling at her dress, her hair, everything. Something crashed out in the kitchen, maybe dishes, maybe the whole stove, but Dorothy couldn't make herself look.
She was crying so hard she could hardly catch her breath. Poor little Toto pressed right up against her and whimpered something awful, and she grabbed him with both arms and held on for dear life because he was so warm and real and if they were going to die up here, at least she wouldn't have to be all alone.
"I'm sorry," she gasped out between her tears. "I'm so, so sorry." Maybe she was talking to dear Aunt Em and Uncle Henry for not making it to the cellar like she should have. Maybe to Mama and Papa, if heaven really was as wonderful as Aunt Em always said it was.
The spinning got something dreadful. Dorothy's stomach just twisted up in knots, and she thought she might be sick all over everything. She pressed her face right into that old quilt and tried her very best not to think about how terribly high up they must be - or how far they'd fall when the house remembered it wasn't supposed to be flying around like some great big bird.
She'd heard about cyclones plenty of times before. Goodness knows, everyone in Kansas had. She'd seen that awful green sky, and she'd run for the cellar faster than anything, and Uncle Henry would tell her stories to keep her from being too frightened. But she'd never been right inside one before. Never felt just how big and mean and alive a storm could really be. Now she understood why the grown men went quiet when they talked about the twister of '89, the one that took half of Abilene right off the map.
Something else broke. More glass, maybe the good mirror in Aunt Em and Uncle Henry's bedroom. Dorothy flinched hard with every crash, certain the next one would be the house coming apart completely and her tumbling through empty air until—
No. Don't think about that. Don't.
She didn't know how long she lay there like that. It could've been five minutes or five hours. Time didn't work right anymore. She just held Toto and the quilt and prayed in broken pieces—the Our Father all mixed up with "please let me live" and "I'll be so good, I promise" and "I love you, Aunt Em" until it was just words that didn't mean anything anymore, just noise competing with noise.
But then, little by little, the roar began to fade. Not stop, exactly—just change. It grew quieter, softer somehow. The spinning slowed. The house still moved, but not the wild way it had before. It felt almost gentle now. Almost like floating.
That was silly, of course. Houses didn't float. But her stomach gave that same swoop it used to when Uncle Henry picked her up and spun her around, and for just a second, she almost believed it could.
She kept her face buried in the quilt for a long time after, too scared to move, convinced that if she lifted her head even an inch, everything would start up again. Her whole body hurt from being so tense. Her throat was raw, and her face was wet with tears and probably other things, but she didn't care.
Toto squirmed and whined.
"Shh," Dorothy whispered, and her voice came out scratchy and small. "It's alright, Toto, darling. Just stay still with me, okay?"
But Toto wriggled right out of her arms and jumped down, his toenails clicking on the wood floor as he trotted straight toward the broken window.
"Toto, no!" Dorothy's heart jumped into her throat. She lunged after him, reaching for his collar and missing. "Toto, darling, come back! You'll fall right out!"
She got to the window and stopped dead. They were still in the air.
Dorothy grabbed the windowsill so hard her hands hurt. Her head spun, and for a second, everything went grey at the edges, but she locked her knees and made herself keep looking because she had to see it, had to understand, even though there was no understanding it.
The house was floating, moving through the air like it weighed nothing at all, drifting over a landscape so bright and colorful it hurt to look at. Fields of flowers stretched out below in colors she'd never seen before: purples that shimmered, blues that glowed, reds so vivid they looked painted. Trees with silver and gold leaves swayed in a breeze she couldn't feel. In the distance, hills rolled like green waves, and beyond them, mountains rose with snow-covered peaks that sparkled like diamonds. It was beautiful. It was impossible. Dorothy's hands shook on the windowsill.
"This just can't be real," she whispered, but dear little Toto was wagging his tail something fierce and sniffing at all that strange air coming through the broken window like this was the most wonderful adventure he'd ever had in his whole life. "Oh, Toto, just look at it all... it simply can't be." She pressed her hand right to her mouth, her eyes growing wide as saucers. "We must be dreaming, don't you think so? We just have to be."
But it felt real. The wood under her hands felt as real as anything. The wind on her face felt real. Her poor heart pounding away, and that awful knot of fear in her stomach felt dreadfully real. The house kept on drifting, slower now, gentler-like.
Dorothy watched that impossible, beautiful, terrible landscape slide by way down beneath them and felt the tears starting up all over again because oh, how she wanted to go home!
She just wanted her own dear grey Kansas dirt and her own familiar grey Kansas sky back and to see Aunt Em's tired but loving smile and feel Uncle Henry's rough, kind hands and everything, just everything that made a lick of sense in the whole wide world.
For just a moment, she almost let herself believe they might drift along like this forever, floating peacefully as you please through this strange, colorful world.
But then the house began to descend. Slowly at first, then faster. Dorothy's stomach just lurched something awful. She grabbed poor Toto quickly, stumbling back from that broken window and dropping down by her bed again. She braced herself for the crash, for all that splintering wood and the end of everything.
But when the house touched down, it barely made a sound. Just a soft little thump and a gentle shudder, like setting down Aunt Em's best china teacup. Dorothy sat there on the floor, hugging Toto close, waiting for her poor heart to slow down and her hands to stop their terrible shaking.
Silence. That awful roar was gone. The wind had stopped completely. Everything was still as could be.
For the longest time, Dorothy didn't dare move. Her ears rang something dreadful in all that quiet, a hollow hum where the storm had been. She could hear her own breathing, short and quick, and the tiny scrape of Toto's little paws on the floorboards. The house smelled like dust and rain and the sharp tang of something broken.
A single piece of glass from the window glinted right beside her, catching a slant of sunlight through the cracked boards. She picked it up without even thinking, turning it between her fingers. It was beautiful in the strangest way, clear and fragile and dangerous all at once.
The floor creaked beneath her, slow and steady. Not moving anymore. Not flying around like some crazy thing. Just a house again. The thought made her throat tighten up something fierce. She'd never realized how much she truly loved all its creaks and sighs until right now, when they sounded like the heartbeat of something that had nearly died.
"Toto?" Dorothy's voice came out small. "Are we... are we okay?"
Toto licked her face and wriggled in her arms, wanting down. Wanting to explore. Because of course he did. Dogs didn't worry about impossible things. Dorothy stood up on wobbly legs. Her whole body ached. She smoothed her dress, which was now torn at the hem, covered in dust, and took a shaky breath.
The front door was right there. All she had to do was open it up and see where they'd landed. Maybe it was still Kansas. Maybe they'd just blown a few miles over and landed in somebody's cornfield, and she could walk on home and laugh about this whole terrible thing someday when it wasn't so frightening and fresh in her mind.
But even as she thought it, she knew deep down it wasn't true. That strange, colorful landscape she'd seen from the window wasn't Kansas. Wasn't anywhere on this whole wide Earth, most likely.
She stood right there before the door, her hand trembling something awful on the knob. The silence pressed against her ears like thick cotton, heavy and waiting. What if there was nothing at all out there? What if there was everything? The smell of rain and dust still clung to her dress, but underneath it was something new—sweet and strange and golden, like sunshine just trying its best to get in.
"Well, Toto," she said to Toto, trying to sound braver than she felt, "here we go." Dorothy opened the door and stepped over the threshold of their farmhouse.
The colors hit her first, so bright and vivid they made poor Kansas look like it had been painted in nothing but shades of grey. The sky was blue like she'd never seen in her whole life, the kind of blue that belonged in fairy tale books.
The grass was so green it nearly glowed like magic. Flowers grew everywhere in wild tangles of colors that shouldn't exist together but somehow did—purples and yellows and reds all mixed up beautiful as you please—and the air smelled sweet as anything, like honey and Aunt Em's fresh bread and the most perfect summer mornings all rolled into one.
And mercy, there were people! Farmers, by the looks of them, all of them just standing there staring at her house like it had fallen clean out of the sky. Which it certainly had.
Dorothy took one careful step forward and then another, with little Toto running right ahead of her and barking at all those strangers. She opened her mouth to say something—to apologize, to ask where in the world she was, to beg them for help getting home.
But before she could get even one word out, one of them, a man in work clothes with reddish-brown curls peeking out from under his hat, pointed straight at her house and shouted something fierce.
"The house! Look at the house!"
They all rushed forward, and Dorothy stumbled back, suddenly frightened as anything.
But they weren't looking at her one bit. They were looking under her house. At something sticking out from beneath it. Feet. Two feet in black pointed shoes with silver buckles, jutting out from under the farmhouse like the most dreadful thing you ever did see.
Dorothy's stomach just dropped clear to her toes. "No," she breathed. "No, no, no—"
She'd killed someone. Her house had fallen right on top of someone and killed them dead.
"I didn't mean to!" The words just burst right out of her. "I'm sorry, I'm so terribly sorry, I didn't—there was a cyclone and I don't know how in the world I got here, but I didn't mean to hurt anybody! Not anybody!"
But the people weren't angry, not one bit. They were cheering. Cheering and dancing and singing, and Dorothy couldn't understand it for the life of her because someone was dead and she'd done it, and why on earth were they celebrating?
The sound swelled all around her until it filled up her ears completely. The sound of laughter, singing in some language she'd never heard before, the rustle of skirts, the clap of hands. Someone tossed handfuls of blue flowers right up into the air, and they drifted down like little bits of the sky itself. Dorothy caught one in her palm. It smelled sharp and sweet, almost too sweet to bear. She let it fall. Her stomach twisted something awful. Everything was so bright, so loud. She wanted it to stop, just stop. How could they be smiling when some poor soul's feet were sticking out from under her house?
She pressed a hand over her mouth, dizzy with the noise. "Please," she whispered, but no one heard her.
"You've killed the Wicked Witch of the East!" one of them cried, grinning up at her with tears of joy streaming down his freckled face. "You've freed us! You've freed us all!"
"Witch?" Dorothy felt dizzy as anything. "No, that's not—I didn't mean—"
The wind shifted. A strange hush fell over the crowd, so sudden that Dorothy's ears rang with it. Every last one of those little people turned at once, their eyes lifting toward the sky. Something shimmered above them—soft pink at first, then brighter and brighter, like sunlight caught in Aunt Em's best crystal glass. The air itself seemed to hum like bees in summer.
A voice floated down with it, light and musical as anything. "Of course you didn't mean to, dear!"
Dorothy looked up. A bubble was drifting toward them—huge and glimmering, catching every color of light like the soap bubbles she used to blow behind the house. It floated lower and lower, impossibly slow and graceful, until she could see her own reflection bending all across its surface. It was the prettiest thing she'd ever seen in her whole life. And the strangest. Her head felt all fuzzy and peculiar, like she was still spinning around and around in that terrible cyclone.
The people who'd gathered around her house—Munchkins, she thought she heard one of them say, but what in the world was a Munchkin?—gasped and stepped back, bowing low as anything. The bubble touched the ground and popped with a sound like Aunt Em's wind chimes, and a woman stepped out, easily the most beautiful woman Dorothy had ever seen in her whole life, wearing a dress that sparkled like all the stars in heaven and holding a wand with a bright star right on top.
Dorothy blinked hard. Once. Twice. The woman was still there. Her hair was the richest strawberry blonde and curled just perfectly, her face smooth as the finest porcelain, her crown catching the light so brightly it nearly hurt to look at. When she smiled at Dorothy, it was the kind of smile that belonged on paintings in fancy museums, beautiful and practiced and just a little too bright.
"Hello, my dear," the woman said, with a voice as light and sugary as spun sugar candy. She gave a little wave, dainty and graceful as you please. "I am Glinda, the Good Witch of the North."
Dorothy's eyes went round as saucers. "A—a witch?" The word came out in the most dreadful squeak. Her hands twisted in her dress. "But witches aren't real. They're just made-up stories. My Aunt Em always said they were nothing but nonsense." She looked at Glinda, at the woman's sparkly salmon-pink dress and her wand and her shining crown, and then around at all those little people and the bright, bright colors everywhere. "And witches are supposed to be old and ugly!"
Glinda's laugh tinkled like bells. "Oh, my dear, only bad witches are ugly." She said it so sweetly, so simply, like she was explaining that the sky was blue.
Dorothy's mouth fell open again. She felt like she should say something, but her brain couldn't quite catch up. Everything was happening too fast.
Glinda stepped closer, skirts swishing. "Now tell me, and because the Munchkins want to know: are you a good witch, or a bad witch?"
"Me?" Dorothy's voice went up so high it almost cracked. She shook her head fast. "Oh, I'm not—I'm not any kind of witch at all! I'm just a girl. Dorothy Gale, from Kansas."
"Kansas?" Glinda's smile didn't waver, but her wand gave a little flick, impatient, like she was brushing something away. "I'm afraid I don't know where that is, dear. You're in Oz now, the Land of Oz." She tilted her head. "Really, though? It's usually witches who drop houses on people. The Munchkins called me because a new witch just dropped a house on the Wicked Witch of the East." She gestured with her wand, first at the house, then at Dorothy, then down at the stockinged feet under the house. "There's the house, here you are, and that's all that's left of the Witch of the East."
Dorothy's eyes went wide. She looked where Glinda was looking: at the feet sticking out beneath the house, the striped stockings, the shoes, and her breath caught.
"I didn't mean to," she blurted out, the words tumbling over each other. "I didn't do anything, I swear—there was a cyclone, and the house just—it lifted right up, and then I woke up here and everyone keeps saying I killed someone, but I didn't, I swear I didn't mean to—"
"Oh, I'm sure you didn't," Glinda said, light as anything, brushing at her sleeve. "How very lucky for you, though. And unlucky for her."
Dorothy felt like she'd been slapped. "But I—I didn't even know she was there," she said, wrapping her arms tight around herself. "I didn't see anyone. I just landed. The house just—it just came down—" Her throat closed up and she shook her head hard, trying to make sense of it all. "It wasn't supposed to happen like this."
She looked down at the shoes again—all that was left—and her legs felt shaky underneath her.
"I don't even know where I am," she said, and her voice broke just a little. The tears came hot and fast, and Dorothy hated crying in front of strangers, but she couldn't help it.
Everything was just too much, too strange, too wrong. She wanted Aunt Em. She wanted to wake up in her own bed with the Kansas sun coming through her window, and this whole thing to just be a bad dream.
Glinda stepped closer and gave Dorothy's shoulder a quick, careful pat, as if afraid to linger. Dorothy stiffened, unsure whether to feel comforted or dismissed. "Yes, yes, of course you didn't mean to, dear," she said in that high, breathy voice, but faster now, like she was reading from a script she'd memorized. "But you see, the outcome is what matters to these people. The Wicked Witch of the East is gone, and the Munchkins are free. That makes you a hero, whether you planned it or not. So that's settled, then."
"Oh, please no, I'm not a hero," Dorothy said through her tears. "I'm just a girl. Just Dorothy Gale. From Kansas."
Glinda's forehead wrinkled. "I'm afraid, my dear, that I don't have the power to send you back to your Kansas. Haven't the time for that sort of magic, really." She said it brightly, but with a definite note of finality. "But I know someone who might. The great Wizard of Oz lives in the Emerald City, and if anyone can help you get home, it would be him."
"A Wizard?" Hope jumped in Dorothy's chest, sharp and bright. "He could really send me home? Back to Kansas? I need to get back to my Aunt Em and Uncle Henry. We have a farm, and it's not much, but it's mine, and I need to go back because they'll be so worried—"
"Yes, yes, I'm sure they are," Glinda interrupted, her breathy voice going just a touch sharper. "Which is why you should start right away, don't you think?"
Her smile stayed bright, her tone lilting, but there was something perfunctory about it, as if she'd had this conversation before and was eager to get through it. "The Emerald City is quite a distance from here, and the journey isn't an easy one. You'll need to follow the Yellow Brick Road."
She pointed with her wand, a brisk little gesture, and Dorothy turned to see a road made of actual yellow bricks; yellow like butter, like sunshine, winding off into the distance.
"There, you see?" Glinda said with a pleased little nod. "Just follow that road and you'll find the Wizard soon enough. He'll know what to do. Now then..." her gaze drifted back toward the house, "before I go, there's one more thing to settle." She started toward the farmhouse, skirts swishing, wand glinting in the sunlight. "You should take these. Mustn't waste them."
Dorothy watched, stomach churning, as the Good Witch of the North bent down carefully so as not to muss her dress and pulled the shoes right off the dead woman's feet. The slippers slid off easily, and the feet crumbled away into dust that blew off on the breeze, leaving nothing but a black dress crumpled under the edge of the house.
"Here we are," Glinda said in her light, musical voice, drifting closer with the silver shoes cupped delicately in her hands. They caught the light, beautiful and terrible all at once. "The Wicked Witch of the East's silver shoes! They're ever so powerful, though what sort of magic they hold, I really couldn't say. They were hers, and now she's gone, so it seems only fair..." She gave a soft, chiming laugh. "They belong to the one who conquered her. And that would be you, my dear."
As Glinda spoke, the silver shoes vanished from her hands and appeared on Dorothy's feet, gleaming in the sunlight.
"Oh no, wait, oh please!" Dorothy said, scrambling forward, panic rising. The shoes felt wrong on her feet, too hot and too tight, and humming like they had their own pulse. Toto ran circles around her, barking. "I don't know anything about this place. How long will it take? What if I get lost? What happens if I can't find him? What if the Wizard won't help me?"
Glinda's smile didn't waver. "Oh, my dear, you'll manage beautifully. Just follow the Yellow Brick Road and keep your chin up. Things have a way of sorting themselves out in Oz."
Dorothy's throat tightened. "But I don't even know which way to start!"
Glinda gave a gentle laugh, airy and distant, already stepping into another bubble that shimmered into being beside her. "My dear, that's the easiest part of all. Simply begin." She lifted her wand in a delicate farewell, the motion as graceful as a curtsy. "You and little Dodo will be quite all right. Goodbye, dear, and good luck!"
The bubble rose, catching the sunlight as it drifted away. Dorothy stood there watching her go, feeling small and scared despite the crowd around her. The Munchkins were still singing, still celebrating, but she barely heard them. Her heart hurt for reasons she couldn't name. Too many things had happened too fast, and she just wanted to go home.
She looked down at Toto, who looked back up with his tongue hanging out, happy as could be, like none of this was strange at all.
"Well, Toto," Dorothy said, her voice shaky. "I guess we're not in Kansas anymore." She turned toward the Yellow Brick Road. Those silver shoes felt hot and wrong on her feet, locked there by magic she didn't understand. Behind her, the Munchkins cheered. Ahead of her, the yellow bricks stretched toward a horizon she couldn't see.
Dorothy didn't feel like a hero. She felt like a girl who was very, very far from home, wearing shoes that wouldn't come off, with a wicked witch somewhere out there who wanted them. But the Wizard could help her. He had to. Because going home was the only thing that mattered now, and she'd walk however far she needed to if it meant seeing Auntie Em and Uncle Henry again.
She took her first step onto the yellow bricks. Toto trotted beside her, his little legs already moving like he knew where they were going. The shoes pulsed with each step, warm and alive and strange. Because what else could she do?
The cheers from all the Munchkins faded behind her. The road gleamed ahead.
And far to the west, a shadow turned its face toward her.